The best work on bower ornaments has been done by John Endler, a now retired scientist who spent some years at both Deakin and James Cook universities. Most bowerbirds have a colour
choice (satins like blue and yellow, and dislike red; but others like white and iridescent black). He did exhaustive studies of the colour landscape in which the various bowerbirds live. From this, it is possible to create a colourscape of the birds world
– what are common colours in the landscape and what are rare. His results suggest that most species use colours that are ‘typically’ rare in their environment, and on the edge of the hues which they normally see. They therefore seem to use colours that are
rare and that likely enhance their conspicuousness. The system is perturbed when what were rare colours become common, usually be garbage being scattered, as they become abundant as well as preferred. Years ago there were problems on the south coast with satins
strangling themselves the blue rings that need to be broken to open the blue caps of milk bottles – the company accepted advice and changed the colour of the caps. I saw a dramatic example of the sudden abundance of rare colours when I recently saw my first
bower of the Vogelkop bowerbird, which is famous for building the most spectacular bower and having the finest arrangements of ornaments. Unfortunately, although it was a fair hike to the bower from the village where we were staying, it wasn’t far enough
for the birds not to be collecting plastic from the village, so as well as berries and fungus and beetle wing cases, there were large numbers of lurid bits of plastic, which sullied the experience a bit. There was one amusing ornament – a quite large toy
water pistol which was bright orange and yellow. The bowerbird would pick it up and wave it menacingly.
Cheers, Andrew Cockburn
From:
Canberrabirds <> on behalf of ben milbourne via Canberrabirds <>
Date: Wednesday, 19 November 2025 at 9:38 am
To: 'Canberra birds' <>
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Bowerbird obsession with blue? - thank you
Thank you to all who have contributed to answering this query. I wonder if the availability of blue feathers, flowers etc in an area affects the population distribution generally or breeding range specifically.
Yes, was being curious re our local species the Satin bowerbird. However, reading the tidbits of other species collections is also very interesting. I guess, there is also the option of using one's own feathers which could announce your
own maturity and thus readiness to mate.
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